“Upriver.”
“Why kidnap sick people?”
“To sell them. I heard a story from the Indian who worked on the Muito Ouro and now is in town. He said there is a foreign doctor upriver, who lives on an island and pays money for sick men. He said the island has guards. But stories are easy to learn because half the time they are not true. Maybe you will find out if this one is.”
“Why buy sick people? It makes no sense.”
“The Indian said they keep them in a little house.”
“And the doctor is foreign? From where?”
A shrug. “He said the doctor came a year ago, to help the old one already there. He said at first the new doctor helped villagers and Indians, but then more foreigners arrived, with guns. Then the sick miners began to come.”
“How can I talk to this Indian?”
Rooster suddenly stepped back angrily, and his face told me to break off questions. Anasasio must have turned around. Rooster started yelling in Portuguese. He slammed his fist on the sluice box. He was a good actor. He shouted, “Perigoso,” which means dangerous, and he shoved me away from the apparatus. Then he spun and spat something at Anasasio. Can’t you control your gringo?
Anasasio’s eyes lingered on Rooster for a fraction of a second too long. Then they slid to me, and he said, shrewd speculation in his voice, “You got too close, Joe. You must not touch the machine, you know.”
One of the other crew members joined in with Rooster, poking his finger at my face. It hit me that they all knew I’d not touched the machinery. That — when they’d looked unfriendly as we approached the boat — the anger may not have been directed at me, but at Anasasio. Their union rep.
They are scared of him. But why?
I felt a familiar clenching in my belly. This is what always happens. You fly into the new place. You are surrounded by strangers. Some are lying but you can’t tell who. You can’t judge by clothing or by income level. The rich man could be the enemy. Or the poor one. Or the smiling child. You must make choices and make them fast. This was tough enough in the days when I could call Washington for help; from research people, search satellites, our embassy. I’d tried already with Ray Havlicek. I’d called him days ago. He’d been sympathetic, but impotent.
“My hands are tied, Joe. Officially, you’re not there. Maybe if you’d found the camp I might be able to push things, but Eddie getting sick is unrelated.”
“Ray, just say it’s related. Make up something!”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
Welcome to civilian life, I thought bitterly, free of high-level interference, but also of high-level help.
I will find you, Eddie.
Anasasio told me that we were leaving. He steered me to the gunwale, and the captain grunted good-bye. The crew went back to work. There was no way to ask more questions. Rooster’s back was to me. We might have never met.
“There are no more boats to visit, Joe. Let’s go home. You could use some sleep.”
I need a gun, I told myself. There must be a gun here.
My options had dwindled. I needed to find an Indian in town. If the guy even existed. But there were 400,000 people in town, and lots of them were probably Indians. “Town” consisted of at least fifteen square miles: slums, office buildings, shopping, a soccer stadium. I had no idea where to go, what to look for, if the Indian had gone back to his village, or what language he spoke. Or even his name. Rooster had called the Indian “he,” so it was a guy. Old guy? Young guy?
I’ll ask Anasasio to drop me off in town. I’ll get a car and come back here on my own, like Eddie did, and get back on that draga and look for more answers.
But then there was no need to do that.
Because, on the way to shore, in the little flying boat, I found a clue.
FOUR
The first victim was an airline baggage handler named Mikaela Dehlman. On the night of July 11 she watched an unclaimed parcel from Flight 1264 out of Frankfurt, Germany, go around and around on a luggage carousel at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, twenty-two miles from downtown. She was unaware that the national terrorism alert level had gone to red.
The unclaimed package lacked a name tag, or even destination tag. They’d shredded. The box was rectangular, about eight inches long, but the wrapping had ripped, and a piece of wooden corner had splintered at the top.
All the passengers had left.
Mikaela picked up the package and, as instructed in a recent security advisory, took it to room 1002A where lost baggage lay, waiting, if not claimed by owner, for eventual X-ray and opening. Sometimes cargo stayed here for days. Mikaela noticed that the parcel had not started its journey in Frankfurt, but from Rio. Probably the package had been put on the wrong plane, sent to Europe by mistake.
It was really interesting looking, she thought, trying to peer inside. She saw plastic wrapping in there, and what looked like a small statue and a clay pot. It was probably artwork. And artwork can be worth a lot, she knew. She and Glenn had taken a walk around Houston’s galleries a few weeks earlier, and she’d been blown away by prices. One little vase had been tagged at $8,000.
I told myself I would not steal things anymore, Mikaela thought.
With a backward glance at the package, and quick look at the broken security camera in the corner, she returned to the run-up area outside. For the next two hours she unloaded bags from other planes. But the package stayed in her mind. She knew that a few handlers stole things from expensive bags, owned, they figured, by people rich enough to afford losing a camera or a laptop computer or any valuables they’d been stupid enough to pack, uninsured.
Besides, expensive bags and artwork are usually insured, she thought, so no one loses money except insurance companies, and they’re crooks anyway, sucking the life out of hardworking people like me and Glenn, who these days sits around drinking my paycheck away. But when he’s working, he’s a good man: kind, generous, fun.
Without two incomes, Mikaela and Glenn were behind on the rent.
I promised not to do this anymore!
All unclaimed luggage, Mikaela knew, ended up at the national lost luggage center in Scottsboro, Alabama, where it was sold at bargain-basement prices to any stranger who showed up and took advantage.
I assured Father Neilly, and I will stick to my word!
Mikaela brought a lovely Samsonite bag that was supposed to be in Montreal to the lost luggage room. The Rio package was now in a corner, almost hidden behind duffel bags, valises, rolling suitcases, and a set of Ping golf clubs that should have been in Qatar. FestivaWest Airlines had the highest rate of lost baggage in the industry. That was one reason it was failing, due for a takeover any day.
Mikaela’s mood worsened when she got back outside. It was raining, and wind blew off the Gulf of Mexico, slanting sheets of water into her face and down her poncho, soaking her shirt. Some days out here it was nice and sunny, and others, today, the salary didn’t seem like enough for her to put up with the shit. Mikaela was a trim, strong woman who had no children. She and Glenn opted to have fun instead. They used Festiva’s free passes to travel on weekends. Last week they’d first-classed to Las Vegas, gotten the airline hotel rate, and lost this month’s food and clothing budget at the blackjack tables at the Venetian.
Maybe I could sell that little clay pot to the man who buys stolen computers and jewelry!